Part 12

It is uncertain whether the parallel communities of men originated also with Lambert le Begue. The first records are of communities at Louvain in 1220 and at Antwerp in 1228. The history of the male communities is to a certain extent parallel with the female, but they were never so numerous and their degeneration was far more rapid. The earliest Flemish Beghard communities were associations mainly of artisans who earned their living by weaving and the like, and appear to have been in intimate connexion with the craft-gilds; but under the influence of the mendicant movement of the 13th century these tended to break up, and, though certain of the male beguinages survived or were incorporated as tertiaries in the orders of friars, the name of Beghard became associated with groups of wandering mendicants who made religion a cloak for living on charity; _beguigner_ becoming in the French language of the time synonymous with "to beg," and _beghard_ with "beggar," a word which, according to the latest authorities, was probably imported into England in the 13th century from this source (see BEGGAR). More serious still, from the point of view of the Church, was the association of these wandering mendicants with the mystic heresies of the Fraticelli, the Apostolici and the pantheistic Brethren of the Free Spirit. The situation was embittered by the hatred of the secular clergy for the friars, with whom the Beguines were associated. Restrictions were placed upon them by the synod of Fritzlar (1269), by that of Mainz (1281) and Eichstatt (1281). and by the synod of Beziers (1299) they were absolutely forbidden. They were again condemned by a synod held at Cologne in 1306; and at the synod of Trier in 1310 a decree was passed against those "who under a pretext of feigned religion call themselves Beghards ... and, hating manual labour, go about begging, holding conventicles and posing among simple people as interpreters of the Scriptures." Matters came to a climax at the council of Vienne in 1311 under Pope Clement V., where the "sect of Beguines and Beghards" were accused of being the main instruments of the spread of heresy, and decrees were passed suppressing their organization and demanding their severe punishment. The decrees were put into execution by Pope John XXII., and a persecution raged in which, though the pope expressly protected the female Beguine communities of the Netherlands, there was little discrimination between the orthodox and unorthodox Beguines. This led to the utmost confusion, the laity in many cases taking the part of the Beguine communities, and the Church being thus brought into conflict with the secular authorities. In these circumstances the persecution died down; it was, however, again resumed between 1366 and 1378 by Popes Urban V. and Gregory XI., and the Beguines were not formally reinstated until the pontificate of Eugenius IV. (1431-1447). The male communities did not survive the 14th century, even in the Netherlands, where they had maintained their original character least impaired.

See J.L. von Mosheirn, _De beghardis et beguinabus commentarius_ (Leipzig, 1790); E. Hallmann, _Die Geschichte des Ursprungs der belgischen Beghinen_ (Berlin, 1843); J.C.L. Giesclcr, _Eccles. Hist._ (vol. iii., Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1853), with useful excerpts from documents; Du Cange, _Glossarium_; Herzog-Haurk, _Realencyklopadie_ (3rd ed., 1897) s. "Beginen," by Herman Haupt, where numerous further authorities are cited. (W. A. P.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In the year 1287 the council of Liege decreed that "all Beguinae desiring to enjoy the Beguine privileges shall enter a Beguinage, and we order that all who remain outside the Beguinage shall wear a dress to distinguish them from the Beguinae."

BEHAIM (or BEHEM), MARTIN (1436?-1507), a navigator and geographer of great pretensions, was born at Nuremberg, according to one tradition, about 1436; according to Ghillany, as late as 1459. He was drawn to Portugal by participation in Flanders trade, and acquired a scientific reputation at the court of John II. As a pupil, real or supposed, of the astronomer "Regiomontanus" (i.e. Johann Muller of Konigsberg in Franconia) he became (c. 1480) a member of a council appointed by King John for the furtherance of navigation. His alleged introduction of the cross-staff into Portugal (an invention described by the Spanish Jew, Levi ben Gerson, in the 14th century) is a matter of controversy; his improvements in the astrolabe were perhaps limited to the introduction of handy brass instruments in place of cumbrous wooden ones; it seems likely that he helped to prepare better navigation tables than had yet been known in the Peninsula. In 1484-1485 he claimed to have accompanied Diogo Cao in his second expedition to West Africa, really undertaken in 1485-86, reaching Cabo Negro in 15 deg. 40' S. and Cabo Ledo still farther on. It is now disputed whether Behaim's pretensions here deserve any belief; and it is suggested that instead of sharing in this great voyage of discovery, the Nuremberger only sailed to the nearer coasts of Guinea, perhaps as far as the Bight of Benin, and possibly with Jose Visinho the astronomer and with Joao Affonso d'Aveiro, in 1484-86. Martin's later history, as traditionally recorded, was as follows. On his return from his West African exploration to Lisbon he was knighted by King John, who afterwards employed him in various capacities; but, from the time of his marriage in 1486, he usually resided at Fayal in the Azores, where his father-in-law, Jobst van Huerter, was governor of a Flemish colony. On a visit to his native city in 1492, he constructed his famous terrestrial globe, still preserved in Nuremberg, and often reproduced, in which the influence of Ptolemy is strongly apparent, but wherein some attempt is also made to incorporate the discoveries of the later middle ages (Marco Polo, &c.). The antiquity of this globe and the year of its execution, on the eve of the discovery of America, are noteworthy; but as a scientific work it is unimportant, ranking far below the _portolani_ charts of the 14th century. Its West Africa is marvellously incorrect; the Cape Verde archipelago lies hundreds of miles out of its proper place; and the Atlantic is filled with fabulous islands. Blunders of 16 deg. are found in the localization of places the author claims to have visited: contemporary maps, at least in regard to continental features, seldom went wrong beyond 1 deg. It is generally agreed that Behaim had no share in Transatlantic discovery; and though Columbus and he were apparently in Portugal at the same time, no connexion between the two has been established. He died at Lisbon in 1507.

See C.G. von Murr, _Diplomatische Geschichte des beruhmten Ritters Behaim_ (1778); A. von Humboldt, _Kritische Untersuchungen_ (1836); F.W. Ghillany, _Geschichte des Seefahrers Martin Behaim_ (1853); O. Peschel, _Geschichte der Erdkunde_, 214-215, 226, 251, and _Zeitalter der Entdeckungen_, esp. p. 90; Breusing, _Zur Geschichte der Geographie_ (1869); Eugen Gelcich in the _Mittheilungen_ of the Vienna Geographical Society, vol. xxxvi. pp. 100, &c.; E.G. Ravenstein, _Martin de Bohemia_, (Lisbon, 1900), _Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe_ (London, 1909), and _Voyages of Diogo Cao and Bartholomeu Dias_, 1482-1488, in _Geographical Journal_, Dec. 1900; see also _Geog. Journal_, Aug. 1893, p. 175, Nov. 1901, p. 509; Jules Mees in _Bull. Soc. Geog._, Antwerp, 1902, pp. 182-204; A. Ferreira de Serpa in _Bull. Soc. Geog._, Lisbon, 1904, pp. 297-307. (C. R. B.)

BEHAR, or BIHAR, a town of British India, in the Patna district of Bengal, which gives its name to an old province, situated on the right bank of the river Panchana. Pop. (1901) 45,063. There are still some manufactures of silk and muslin, but trade has deserted Behar in favour of Patna and other places more favourably situated on the river Ganges and the railway, while the indigo industry has been ruined by the synthetic products of the German chemist, and the English colony of indigo planters has been scattered abroad.

The old province, stretching widely across the valley of the Ganges from the frontier of Nepal to the hills of Chota Nagpur, corresponds to the two administrative divisions of Patna and Bhagalpur, with a total area of 44,197 sq. m. and a population of 24,241,305. It is the most densely populated tract in India, and therefore always liable to famine; but it is now well protected almost everywhere by railways. It is a country of large landholders and formerly of indigo planters. The vernacular language is not Bengali, but a dialect of Hindu; and the people likewise resemble those of Upper India. The general aspect of the country is flat, except in the district of Monghyr, where detached hills occur, and in the south-east of the province, where the Rajmahal and Santal ranges abut upon the plains.

Behar abounds in great rivers, such as the Ganges, with its tributaries, the Ghagra, Gandak, Kusi, Mahananda and Sone. The Ganges enters the province near the town of Buxar, flows eastward and, passing the towns of Dinajpur, Patna, Monghyr and Colgong, leaves the province at Rajmahal. It divides the province into two almost equal portions; north of the river lie the districts of Saran, Champaran, Tirhoot, Purnea, and part of Monghyr and Bhagalpur, and south of it are Shahabad, Patna, Gaya, the Santal parganas, and the rest of Monghyr and Bhagalpur. The Ganges and its northern tributaries are navigable by country boats of large burden all the year round. The cultivation of opium is a government monopoly, and no person is allowed to grow the poppy except on account of government. The Behar Opium Agency has its headquarters at the town of Patna. Annual engagements are entered into by the cultivators, under a system of pecuniary advances, to sow a certain quantity of land with poppy, and the whole produce in the form of opium is delivered to government at a fixed rate.

Saltpetre is largely refined in Tirhoot, Saran and Champaran, and is exported both by rail and river to Calcutta. The manufactures of less importance are tussore-silk, paper, blankets, brass utensils, firearms, carpets, coarse cutlery and hardware, leather, ornaments of gold and silver, &c. Of minerals--lead, silver and copper exist in the Bhagalpur division, but the mines are not worked. One coal-mine is worked in the parganas. Before the construction of railways in India, the Ganges and the Grand Trunk road afforded the sole means of communication from Calcutta to the North-Western Provinces. But now the railroad is the great highway which connects Upper India with Lower Bengal. The East Indian railway runs throughout the length of the province. The climate of Behar is very hot from the middle of March to the end of June, when the rains set in, which continue till the end of September. The cold season, from October to the first half of March, is the pleasantest time of the year.

_History._--The province of Behar corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Magadha, which comprised the country now included in the districts of Patna, Gaya and Shahabad, south of the Ganges. The origin of this kingdom, famous alike in the political and religious history of India, is lost in the mists of antiquity; and though the Brahmanical _Puranas_ give lists of its rulers extending back to remote ages before the Christian era, the first authentic dynasty is that of the Saisunaga, founded by Sisunaga (c. 600 B.C.), whose capital was at Rajagaha (Rajgir) in the hills near Gaya; and the first king of this dynasty of whom anything is known was Bimbisara (c. 528 B.C.), who by conquests and matrimonial alliances laid the foundations of the greatness of the kingdom. It was in the reign of Bimbisara that Vardhamana Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, and Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, preached in Magadha, and Buddhist missionaries issued thence to the conversion of China, Ceylon, Tibet and Tatary. Even to this day Behar, where there are extensive remains of Buddhist buildings, remains a sacred spot in the eyes of the Chinese and other Buddhist nations.

Bimbisara was murdered by his son Ajatasatru, who succeeded him, and whose bloodthirsty policy reduced the whole country between the Himalayas and the Ganges under the suzerainty of Magadha. According to tradition, it was his grandson, Udaya, who founded the city of Pataliputra (Patna) on the Ganges, which under the Maurya dynasty became the capital not only of Magadha but of India. The remaining history of the dynasty is obscure; according to Mr Vincent Smith, its last representative was Mahanandin (417 B.C.), after whose death the throne was usurped, under obscure circumstances, by Mahapadma Nanda, a man of low caste (_Early Hist. of India_, p. 36). It was a son of this usurper who was reigning at the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great; and the conqueror, when his advance was arrested at the Hyphasis (326 B.C.), meditating an attack on Pataliputra (the Palimbothra of the Greeks), was informed that the king of Magadha could oppose him with a force of 20,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 2000 chariots, and 3000 or 4000 elephants. The Nanda dynasty seems to have survived only for two generations, when (321 B.C.) Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the great Maurya dynasty, seized the throne. This dynasty, of which the history belongs to that of India (q.v.), occupied the throne for 137 years. After the death of the great Buddhist king, Asoka (c. 231), the Maurya empire began to break up, and it was finally destroyed about fifty years later when Pushyamitra Sunga murdered the Maurya king Brihadratha and founded the Sunga dynasty. Descendants of Asoka continued, however, to subsist in Magadha as subordinate rajas for many centuries; and as late as the 8th century A.D. petty Maurya dynasties are mentioned as ruling in Konkan. The reign of Pushyamitra, who held his own against Menander and succeeded in establishing his claim to be lord paramount of northern India, is mainly remarkable as marking the beginning of the Brahmanical reaction and the decline of Buddhism; according to certain Buddhist writers the king, besides reviving Hindu rites, indulged in a savage persecution of the monks. The Sunga dynasty, which lasted 112 years, was succeeded by the Kanva dynasty, which after 45 years was overthrown (c. 27 B.C.) by the Andhras or Satavahanas. In A.D. 236 the Andhras were overthrown, and, after a confused and obscure period of about a century, Chandragupta I. established his power at Pataliputra (A.D. 320) and founded the famous Gupta empire (see GUPTA), which survived till it was overthrown by the Ephthalites (q.v.), or White Huns, at the close of the 5th century. In Magadha itself the Guptas continued to rule as tributary princes for some centuries longer. About the middle of the 8th century Magadha was conquered by Gopala, who had made himself master in Bengal, and founded the imperial dynasty known as the Palas of Bengal. They were zealous Buddhists, and under their rule Magadha became once more an active centre of Buddhist influence. Gopala himself built a great monastery at Udandapura, or Otantapuri, which has been identified by Sir Alexander Cunningham with the city of Behar, where the later Pala kings established their capital. Under Mahipala (c. 1026), the ninth of his line, and his successor Nayapala, missionaries from Magadha succeeded in firmly re-establishing Buddhism in Tibet.

In the 11th century the Pala empire, which, according to the Tibetan historian Taranath, extended in the 9th century from the Bay of Bengal to Delhi and Jalandhar (Jullundur) in the north and the Vindhyan range in the south, was partly dismembered by the rise of the "Sena" dynasty in Bengal; and at the close of the 12th century both Palas and Senas were swept away by the Mahommedan conquerors, the city of Behar itself being captured by the Turki free-lance Mahommed-i-Bakhtyar Khilji in 1193, by surprise, with a party of 200 horsemen. "It was discovered," says a contemporary Arab historian, "that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar." Most of the monks were massacred in the first heat of the assault; those who survived fled to Tibet, Nepal and the south. Buddhism in Magadha never recovered from this blow; it lingered in obscurity for a while and then vanished.

Behar now came under the rule of the Mahommedan governors of Bengal. About 1330 the southern part was annexed to Delhi, while north Behar remained for some time longer subject to Bengal. In 1397 the whole of Behar became part of the kingdom of Jaunpur; but a hundred years later it was annexed by the Delhi emperors, by whom--save for a short period--it continued to be held. The capital of the province was established under the Moguls at the city of Behar, which gave its name to the province. From the middle of the 14th to the middle of the 16th century a large part of Behar was ruled by a line of Brahman tributary kings; and in the 15th century another Hindu dynasty ruled in Champaran and Gorakhpur. Behar came into the possession of the East India Company with the acquisition of the Diwani in 1765, when the province was united with Bengal. In 1857 two zemindars, Umar Singh and Kumar Singh, rebelled against the British government, and for some months held the ruinous fort of Rohtas against the British.

See _Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908), _s.v._ "Bihar" and "Bengal"; V.A. Smith, _Early History of India_ (2nd ed., Oxford, 1908).

BEHA UD-DIN [ABU-L-MAHASIN YUSUF IBN RAFI' IBN SHADDAD BEHA UD DIN] (1145-1234), Arabian writer and statesman, was born in Mosul and early became famous for his knowledge of the Koran and of jurisprudence. Before the age of thirty he became teacher in the great college at Bagdad known as the Nizamiyya, and soon after became professor at Mosul. In 1187, after making the pilgrimage to Mecca, he visited Damascus. Saladin, who was at the time besieging Kaukab (a few miles south of Tiberias), sent for him and became his friend. Beha ud-Din observed that the whole soul of the monarch was engrossed by the war which he was then engaged in waging against the enemies of the faith, and saw that the only mode of acquiring his favour was by urging him to its vigorous prosecution. With this view he composed a treatise on _The Laws and Discipline of Sacred War_, which he presented to Saladin, who received it with peculiar favour. From this time he remained constantly attached to the person of the sultan, and was employed on various embassies and in departments of the civil government. He was appointed judge of the army and judge of Jerusalem. After Saladin's death Beha-ud-Din remained the friend of his son Malik uz-Zahir, who appointed him judge of Aleppo. Here he employed some of his wealth in the foundation of colleges. When Malik uz-Zahir died, his son Malik ul-'Aziz was a minor, and Beha ud-Din had the chief power in the regency. This power he used largely for the patronage of learning. After the abdication of Malik ul-'Aziz, he fell from favour and lived in retirement until his death in 1234. Beha ud-Din's chief work is his _Life of Saladin_ (published at Leiden with Latin translation by A. Schultens in 1732 and 1755). An English translation was published by the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, London, 1897.

For list of other extant works see C. Brockelmann, _Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur_ (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. pp. 316 f. (G. W. T.)

BEHA UD-DIN ZUHAIR (ABU-L FADL ZUHAIR IBN MAHOMMED AL-MUHALLABI) (1186-1258), Arabian poet, was born at or near Mecca, and became celebrated as the best writer of prose and verse and the best calligraphist of his time. He entered the service of Malik us-Salih Najm ud-Din in Mesopotamia, and was with him at Damascus until he was betrayed and imprisoned. Beha ud-Din then retired to Nablus (Shechem) where he remained until Najm ud-Din escaped and obtained possession of Egypt, whither he accompanied him in 1240. There he remained as the sultan's confidential secretary until his death, due to an epidemic, in 1258. His poetry consists mostly of panegyric and brilliant occasional verse distinguished for its elegance. It has been published with English metrical translation by E.H. Palmer (2 vols., Cambridge, 1877).

His life was written by his contemporary Ibn Khallikan (see M'G. de Slane's trans. of his _Biographical Dictionary_, vol. i. pp. 542-545). (G. W. T.)

BEHBAHAN, a walled town of Persia in the province of Fars, pleasantly situated in the midst of a highly cultivated plain, 128 m. W.N.W. of Shiraz and 3 m. from the left bank of the river Tab, here called Kurdistan river. It is the capital of the Kuhgilu-Behbahan sub-province of Fars and has a population of about 10,000. The walls are about 3 m. in circumference and a Narinj Kalah (citadel) stands in the south-east corner. At a short distance north-west of the city are the ruins of Arrajan, the old capital of the province.

BEHEADING, a mode of executing capital punishment (q.v.). It was in use among the Greeks and Romans, and the former, as Xenophon says at the end of the second book of the _Anabasis_, regarded it as a most honourable form of death. So did the Romans, by whom it was known as _decollatio_ or _capitis amputatio_. The head was laid on a block placed in a pit dug for the purpose,--in the case of a military offender, outside the intrenchments, in civil cases outside the city walls, near the _porta decumana_. Before execution the criminal was tied to a stake and whipped with rods. In earlier years an axe was used; afterwards a sword, which was considered a more honourable instrument of death, and was used in the case of citizens (_Dig._ 48, 19, 28). It was with a sword that Cicero's head was struck off by a common soldier. The beheading of John the Baptist proves that the tetrarch Herod had adopted from his suzerain the Roman mode of execution. Suetonius (_Calig. c_. 32) states that Caligula kept a soldier, an artist in beheading, who in his presence decapitated prisoners fetched indiscriminately for that purpose from the gaols.

Beheading is said to have been introduced into England from Normandy by William the Conqueror. The first person to suffer was Waltheof, earl of Northumberland, in 1076. An ancient MS. relating to the earls of Chester states that the serjeants or bailiffs of the earls had power to behead any malefactor or thief, and gives an account of the presenting of several heads of felons at the castle of Chester by the earl's serjeant. It appears that the custom also attached to the barony of Malpas. In a roll of 3 Edward II., beheading is called the "custom of Cheshire" (Lysons' _Cheshire_, p. 299, from Harl. MS. 2009 fol. 34b). The liberty of Hardwick, in Yorkshire, was granted the privilege of beheading thieves. (See GUILLOTINE.)